I’ve never really been a big fan of living your life to rules/mantras set by others for two reasons:
1) I have always felt that they came about through a set of circumstances, specific to that individual at that particular time.
2) I am just far too disorganised/naive/skitty to stop and listen to the words, take in their meaning and learn from them.
However, I came across something today, courtesy of TBWA Manchester which totally struck a chord with me and hits the nail on the head:
You cannot outperform a market if you adhere to its conventions
Rock on! Think about how to break the rules to make the new rules - disruption rules 
And then it got me thinking about a couple of other phrases/mantras that have made their way into my life and social media:
You were born with one mouth and two ears for a reason
Learning to listen is much more important than talking.
and
The only stupid question is the one that doesn’t get asked
Encourage the asking and receving of questions to learn the most from your customers.
“Mariska Hargitay” my readers!
3 responses so far ↓
1 Dave K // Aug 28, 2008 at 7:27 pm
nice post Paul, point 1 is particularly pertinent in the face of some of the lame suggestions for marketing activities that I’ve heard recently. You can’t stand out from the crowd by doing the same as everybody else.
2 Dane Morgan | Niche Blogger // Aug 28, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Not a bad set of mantras if you’re going to adopt just a small set from the sea of otherwise ignored wisdom! I can’t remember not knowing the second two, but the first “You cannot outperform a market if you adhere to its conventions” is new to me, and I thank you for sharing it!
3 paul.fabretti // Aug 29, 2008 at 4:05 am
@Dave - couldn’t agree more. There’s too much of the same old, same old - even when people use the “new tools” that are out there.
Do something new and different. With so many cool new (free) tools, the only thing stopping innovation is the people using them - and maybe that is where the problem lies.
@Dane it’s a pleasure, although I have to give TBWA credit for that one! If the shoe fits though..
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